Getting ready for the exit....
That could be a C & W song title. But it is not. It is about.... well... life after you...
This is a repeat posting... but I have a bee in my bonnet about the topic, that is why I am doing a repeat here; the older I get the more messes I hear about when people don´t leave their affairs in order. Messes they leave for others still living I mean!
So, for those who have been there done that, give yourself a clap on the back and enjoy the photos which I am adding to the post. Photos with absolutely no connection to this topic at all - Kilkenny during the winter flooding. I will put the photos along side the blog posting - just to encourage others to read the posting.
Five Things
You can Do to Prepare Your Family for Life-after-You.
One of the
best things you can do for your loved ones is to prepare their way for life-after-you!
- Which will, hopefully, be an event that happens way into the
future. The holidays are over, the weather is not good for going out and
about, so there is no excuse not to start getting things in order - NOW.
If all is
in hand and done and dusted, great. Take
a moment to gloat at your own efficiency and fabulousness and read no further.
If not, and you don´t want to think about it, well go down to the end and
read the horror stories about things that resulted when people did not prepare
properly for the exit.
Heck it you know you won´t follow up on this, you should read the horror
stories anyway, they are an interesting read, even if not for you, dear reader,
a motivator.
Five things
you can do to prepare your Family for Life-after-You
1)
Write a
living will.
A living
will gives instructions of how you want to be cared for should you become
seriously ill, or suffer a very bad accident.
For
example, do you want to be resuscitated if you stop breathing etc? No right or
wrong answer here, only your answer. And nobody can answer that for you
only you.
Make sure at least one person knows what
you have written in your living will, and, where the living will is
kept. When you fall ill, it is no good to you having all this info. in
the bank vault with your will. No one will be reading all that stuff until you are dead.
2) Designate someone(s) as your Power of
Attorney.
This person
makes important financial and other decisions for you when you no longer
can. Think this one through carefully: If you have not designated a POA,
next of kin gets the job. And what if next of kin is an alcoholic/drug
dependent compulsive gambler/shopper? Same problem if you chose the wrong
designate obviously.
3) Write a
will – and write it ´right`.
Someone
once said: a will is one of the most important documents you will ever
write, and it will have absolutely no consequence to you at all. True. I strongly
advise you get a legal professional to review your will to make sure it is in
order. It will be a right mess if it is
not. Getting legal advice to assist in writing a simple will is not
expensive in most jurisdictions where such things matter; and for the peace of mind
alone it is money well spent.
4) Sort out your affairs.
There was a time in my innocence I thought that meant you made sure your checking account was not
overdrawn, that you owed no taxes, or had no other debts outstanding etc. This is all good, indeed excellent, and should
be done in tandem with writing a will etc.
Regarding sorting
out your affairs however, I now know better:
Are/were
there any secret relationships? Any offspring as a result of said
relationships? Ditto after one night stands?
Any other
matters (…secret lives, debts …) that may crop up to shock your loved
ones after you die? Deal with it now or it could all come out at the
grave side, as you can read later. Not pretty for anyone.
5) Funeral Wishes/Burial Wishes.
Burned or
buried? Your decision.
This is
really a no brainer, the best way to have the funeral you want is to plan it
all yourself when you still can. At the very least be sure family know if
and where you want to be buried, or cremated.
No point in having all that information stored with your will, which
won´t be read until you are dead and buried.
-----------------------------------------------
And so to the motivating horror stories. All true
Horror
story 1: Living Will.
Man wrote
in living will that he did not want to be resuscitated if it meant he would not
have the chance of a good quality life after resuscitation. He left the
document in a book by the bed. Told no one.
Ended up in hospital with an emergency. Nurse resuscitated him when
he stopped breathing. He survived and survived and survived for three
more years, no quality of life and all the inheritance was used up on medical
bills.
- Some months after he had gone into hospital,
his wife found the book with the living will in it by his bedside…
Horror
Story 2:
Mis-Designated Power of Attorney.
Widower had
no PoA, no lawyer, nothing. He had instead three different bank accounts,
each of which he and one of his offspring were the named account holders. That way, he thought, each would have an
inheritance on his death. When he became mentally feeble the bank advised
he needed a PoA. Bossy daughter insisted she get the job, the other
two siblings were loath to intervene, fearing their motives would be misconstrued.
Widowed father
died; a year later bossy daughter died. It then came to light said bossy
daughter had been siphoning off money from the siblings accounts. What
she did not use herself she left to her children. That is to say bossy
sister´s children got anything that was left and bossy sister´s siblings got
nothing. And this was all perfectly legal.
Horror
Story 3: Write a will – right.
Man wrote
will at kitchen table simply.
`All my
possessions should be sold and the money should be divided equally between my
family members`.
He got his
mother to witness and sign the document. He died childless. And it was a
mess.
Two big
problems after his premature dead.
a) He never clarified who family was, i.e. his partner, his
siblings, his first cousins…
b) It is a law in just about every country that a
signatory can never benefit from the contents of a will. Thus his mother
was not eligible for anything.
Full
disclosure, even writing a will correctly is no guarantee that all will run
smoothly. The inheritors can mess it all up too, but at least if you
write your will correctly, you will have done your bit!
Horror
Story 3a: Write a will – right.
This story
is in the public domain, but worth sharing none the less. Marilyn Monroe willed
all her worldly goods to a photographer with whom she had worked, saying
something like:
´Dear X,
please share all my belongings amongst those who were important to me.
And you know who they are.´
But Mr. X
did not do that, he stored it all in his attic. He died, his wife died,
and no doubt in the meantime all those ´who were important to Miss Monroe´
had likely died by this time as well. So on the death of the photographer’s
wife, her heirs sold all Marilyn Monroe´s stuff and made a fortune.
Horror
Story 3b: Not Writing a Will.
Titled
gentleman of means went through four wives and had two step sons and a daughter. His
fourth and last wife was a lot younger than him. Neither she nor titled
gentleman had a will. Titled gentleman got ill, young wifey got ill.
Titled gentleman died, everything went to the young wifey clearly as she was
his legal next of kin.
Thirty four days later young wifey died. See
what happened here: If a next of kin lives longer than 31 days after they
receive an inheritance it is a valid inheritance. And young wify´s next of kin, in this case her only brother `Howard`, then came into her inheritance,. So ´Howard`, a man that had absolutely no relationship to titled gentleman not six weeks
earlier, received all the titled gentleman´s property after the premature death of titled gentleman´s young wife. - Save the title
which died with said titled gentleman.
Horror Story
3c: Writing a Will that was good - thirty years ago!
Pair had two sons;
one bright and focused, he went on to become a doctor. Other son was ´a bit not too fond of work`; clearly he had inherited Uncle Joe´s black
sheep genes, and said son was unlikely to make anything of himself so his
parents thought. The parents decided, therefore, to leave the bulk of their
estate to the ´ne´er do well´ son, fearing he would not have enough to support
his elder years. Fast forward 30 years. Both parents are
now dead, the ne ´er do well son got on his feet, and became a very
successful business man. The bright, successful ´doctor son´ was sued for
medical malpractice. He lost everything clearing his good name.
Horror
Story 4 - Sort out your affairs.
This story
was told to me by the sister of the deceased who witnessed the whole
thing. At the graveside, just after the burial, a woman unknown to the
family approached the decease´s wife, introduced herself and said that the
deceased was the father of her two children, 10, and 7. And that she was
there to put in a claim on the inheritance on behalf of the children.
The sister
said one of the kids looked so like her deceased brother that it was clear the
woman was not lying. And no one had had a clue. The deceased´s family were feeling a lot less
loving about the just buried, particularly as they had just spent a small
fortune giving him a big funeral!
Horror
Story 4 - Funeral Wishes/Burial Wishes.
A man left
specific instructions that he wanted to be buried in the next parish, not in
the family grave in his home parish. – He wrote this nice and clearly –
in his will. Which of course was not read until after the funeral and
burial in his home parish.
(This sad
episode was written about in the newspapers, whereby one poor devastated
sibling went down the night of the funeral and tried to dig up the remains and
move them to the other grave yard.)
------------------------------
So there you have it,
the low down on being ´lowered down!!!
Now that that is all
done and dusted, you can start on your bucket
list. -
Happy Planning!
